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The Road Less Traveled // Brass Meets Bronze 2

1,400 miles and counting...



On Saturday, May 10th, the second year of Brass Meets Bronze lands in the heart of MainStrasse Village (Covington, KY) and it recently dawned on me that a lot of folks have no idea the lengths we're going to put this event together. With that in mind, we've decided to create a mini-blog series (thanks Ray) to loop people into this journey …and what could be more fitting than to start with the first major road trip?!?

The adventure to bring some exciting out of town work to the Northern Kentucky/Southern Ohio region began last Thursday with a journey to meet up with Felandus Thames, a recent Yale grad who's creating all new work for Brass Meets Bronze 2. Our conversations were rewarding and when all was said and done, it was good to be in New York again …especially since the arts brought us there. Regretfully, we couldn't stay as a few other points were calling.


From there, we rolled down to the Washington DC Metro Area to connect with Lincoln Mudd and his abstract iron and cast aluminum work, which I'll be photographing for your viewing pleasure in the next few days. Good conversation ensued with him and his wife, but again the road was calling...  "Onward!" brought us to the work of Christian Benefiel and landed us a bit off of the path in Leedysvile, MD. Still, these two two interactions were especially great as I had fallen out of touch with both of the artists' recent practices and given Christian had created some wood and bronze work especially for this event made the trip that much more exciting. Plus he and his wife took us to a great little place for lunch — Blue Moon Cafe in Shepherdstown, WV — where the town's river literally runs in and out of the grounds.

We weren't done though...

Before heading back to Cincinnati we stopped in Morgantown, WV to visit our pal Robert "Boomer" Moore, who leads the way with ceramics in the WVU art department. Of this journey's stops, Boomer's the one who's returning for his second year and if you remember and enjoyed  the cylindrical ceramic work embellished with copper fittings, that was him. This year, he's submitted multi-media works made from glass, ceramic and brass fitting ...which we'll detail in our next post!

In closing, while this post isn't filled with a bunch of dazzling imagery (as most of it is still tightly packaged and/or wrapped due to the recent rain here in Cincinnati), starting with part of our journey will hopefully help set the stage as we plan to continue expanding our reach as the years roll on.

All in all, this event is our baby and we're looking to grow it into a well traveled international, passport carrying entity. With that, please stay tuned with this blog for artist spotlights and updates from more of our partners.

We hope to see you May 10th // Mother's Day Weekend.
Thanks again to our sponsors ...ArtsWave + Maker's Mark + MainStrasse Village Association!
Learn more at http://parProjects.com/BrassMeetsBronze




Until next time,
Jonathan


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